The World Mobile Congress in Barcelona has unveiled a new round of sophisticated smartphones to conquer the world market. Some new releases are from Chinese companies.

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The world's largest mobile-devices show has introduced a new generation of intelligent handsets with a processing power that we used to see just a couple of years ago in computers. Quad-core smartphones are now the rule, and the result is amazing possibilities in multimedia. Chinese manufacturer Huawei has presented the world's fastest smartphone. It's the Ascend D Quad, with a 1.5 GHZ chipset. it does more with 30% less energy, because its battery can last for two days.

David Wan, PR Manager of Huawei Device, said, "You can just hold it in one hand and operating is very convenient. It has HD resolution and has many functions on the camera. It can film with HD video. And it has power saving technologies. You use the phone up to two to three times as much."

ZTE has launched eight new devices and his ambition is to become a top three handset provider by 2015, but that means reducing prices to conquer emerging markets.

Yuan Lei, Product Marketing, ZTE Handset Division, said, "The intelligent devices like smartphone and tablets will be very easy to get when the cost of the panel, of the touches, of the battery, of the chipset are getting down. We can see clearly that price is dropping."

But sophistication and multimedia power still means high price and to protect that expensive asset you need to make it shock resistant or waterproof. This is what Japanese companies Panasonic and Fujitsu have done with some of their smartphone.

James Maynard, Director of Product Marketing, Fujitsu, said, "This devices are able of being submerged to a depth of 1.5 meters by up to 30 minutes. Water damage is the largest cause of returns for any mobile handset. And when you are spending that much on this form of technology it's good that manufacturers are taking that into consideration and trying to overcome those issues, especially when current insurance policies against mobile phones usually don't cover water damage."

Samsung has grabbed a lot of attention in Barcelona. The Korean company got inspiration from the booming tablet market and the product of that is the new Galaxy Note 10.1, which wants to enhance the creativity and talent of its user thanks to the optical S-Pen.

Samsung sees a bright future in this mini tablets, capable of any multimedia task… and yes of course you can even make a phone call with that once you have finished your drawing.

"Demand for smartphones is growing at record levels. Last year sales increased by 53%, with 432 million units sold. This year one billion people will have one of these smartphones, and most of them will be sold in emerging countries, provided that prices get lower from current levels. Constantino de Miguel, CCTV, Barcelona."